He said, ‘I think the real problem was that Keira wasn’t a singer and wasn’t a guitar player and it’s very hard to make music seem real if it’s not with musicians.

‘And I think the audience struggled a little bit with that in Begin Again. And as much as I tried to make it work, I think that she didn’t quite come out as a guitar-playing singer-songwriter. So I really wanted to work with musicians and actors that could play their instruments properly and sing and stuff like that.’

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Since then, the director has been busy working on his new movie, Sing Street, which was filmed in Ireland.

John explained, ‘I had just come back from making this far bigger movie in America, and I was a bit disenchanted with working with certain movie stars in that movie and I wanted a break…

‘I didn’t enjoy that experience of paparazzi and fabulous openings. The movie-star world is not something that ever appealed to me. I like working with actors and I wanted to come back to what I knew and enjoy filmmaking again – not that I didn’t enjoy Begin Again, but Keira has an entourage that follow her everywhere so it’s very hard to get any real work done, and so I was very ready to come back to Ireland and make films that nobody cared about who was in it or any of that crap.’

He finished, ‘I learned that I’ll never make a film with supermodels again.’

Um. Last time we checked, Keira wasn’t a supermodel, but a pretty famous (and talented) actress…?

John went on, ‘Keira’s thing is to hide who you are and I don’t think you can be an actor and do that…’

He explained, ‘I don’t want to rubbish Keira, but you know it’s hard being a film actor and it requires a certain level of honesty and self-analysis that I don’t think she’s ready for yet and I certainly don’t think she was ready for on that film.’

Ouch.

Directors Mark Romanek and Lorene Scafaria were quick to defend Keira – and her work – on social media.

Romenek tweeted, ‘My experience with #keiraknightley was utterly spectacular on every level. I have no clue what this guy is talking about. #arrogants***head’.

He added, ‘My recollection of #keiraknightley’s ‘entourage’ was that her mum visited the set one day for an hour or two’.

Lorene added, ‘I agree with Mark. Keira was a joy to work w/. Present & easy & really, really good at her job. Just lovely.’